Penn State Empowers 100,000-Plus Students and Faculty with Browser-Based Access to Windows Applications—using Ericom AccessNow

Clientless Solution Reduces Help Desk Tickets by 90 Percent by Eliminating the Need to Install Any Software on User Devices

Closter, N.J., (July 30, 2014) - Ericom Software, a global leader in application access and desktop virtualization solutions, announced today that Ericom AccessNow has been selected to provide more than 100,000 Penn State students and faculty with clientless access to an array of mathematics, statistics, Microsoft Office, and SolidWorks computer-aided design programs.

Penn State replaced a Java-based remote access solution with AccessNow, eliminating the need to install and maintain software on endpoint devices and reducing help desk support tickets by 90 percent. Deployed to support 96,000 students and 7,000 faculty across Penn State’s 22 campuses, AccessNow also extends the availability of 8,696 Windows workstations located in 1,400-plus lab and classroom locations.

“Our goal from the beginning was to have no plug-ins and eliminate the use of Java,” explained Preston Baker, systems administrator in Classroom and Lab Computing, a division of Penn State’s Information Technology Services. “Anytime a Java update came out, we experienced a flood of help desk issues. With AccessNow, we have a tenth of the support volume, freeing us up to focus on other IT initiatives.” Citing the fast-growing popularity of the browser-based solution among the students and staff, Baker added, “Last month, more than 26,000 application sessions were powered by AccessNow via an array of devices, including Apple iPads and Google Chromebooks.”

Jonathan Holman, IT manager in Classroom and Lab Computing, noted, “From a business perspective, AccessNow allows us to extend the learning environment to off-campus students and faculty, at home or during off-hours. This helps facilitate remote learning and off-campus collaboration.”
Later this summer, Baker and Holman plan to expand the use of AccessNow at Penn State to deliver a full desktop experience.

Joshua Behar, president at Ericom Software, commented “Penn State demonstrates how AccessNow supports large-scale deployments, giving users a convenient way of accessing hosted applications while reducing overall IT support. We look forward to working with the university as they expand their AccessNow deployment to support a full desktop experience.”

Ericom AccessNow benefits include:

Enables students and faculty to securely access a broad range of educational applications via standard browsers

Eliminates the need to install, configure, and manage client software on end-user devices, significantly reducing help desk support workload

About Ericom
Ericom Software is a leading global provider of Application Access, Virtualization and RDP Acceleration Solutions. Since 1993, Ericom has been helping users access enterprise mission-critical applications running on a broad range of Microsoft Windows Terminal Servers, Virtual Desktops, legacy hosts and other systems. Ericom has offices in the United States, United Kingdom and EMEA. Ericom also has an extensive network of distributors and partners throughout North America, Europe, Asia and the Far East. Our expanding customer base is more than 30 thousand strong, with over 8 million users. For more information about Ericom and its products, please visit our website.

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